Nótt
by HomemadePie
Summary: Reinhard has a dream, revisits his memories. Spoilers for pretty much the whole show.
1. Chapter 1

Kaiser Reinhard von Lohengramm lie in bed, exhausted. He wasn't sure what had exhausted him; life, perhaps, unbearable losses, his own tragic fate. It didn't matter what had caused it, in the end, the truth remained that he was drained of energy, bedridden, and no one could've cured him of his ailments. His wife his son and his dear sister could be heard nearby, somewhere worlds away from him, speaking, or playing, or crying, he had no way of being sure, they were merely sounds, white noise escaping from another plane of existance, coming to fill his quiet loneliness.

Suddenly, complete silence enveloped him, and he wondered vaguely if something was happening. He held the locket tightly, and at that moment the familiar cool touch of metal, and the smell of home and happiness dispelled his worries. It was the smell coffee sweetened with honey, a scent that had been with him throughout his life, in the moments he deemed most important: at home after a long, tiring duel that I pretended hadn't happened; meeting with my sister in that garden filled with flowers and her smile; the most honourable enemy anyone would ever encounter having a chat with me, declining my offers; winning the universe, a cup on my hand, the promise fulfilled. The smell came from silence, tearing through the impenetrable layers of heavy, ineffable loneliness, bringing forth all these images and many others, as he looked up and saw the hands of a child carrying a tray that floated above him as he drifted off into sleep.

The sound of a door being shut woke Reinhard from his slumber, his eyes finding it difficult to adjust to the completely lit room. The smell of honey-sweetened coffee filled up the entirety of it, and he smiled to himself, staring up at the ceiling, trying to make out the forms and figures his childhood friend insisted were visible on it whenever he slept over, his arm and his finger stretched to draw on air, there Lord Reinhard, can you see it now? Follow the figure I'm drawing.

I fell asleep, he thought, too many memories. How long had he lived? Not long enough to have so much nostalgia inside of him; it was as if he was pining for a life he didn't lead, would never lead. It had always been there, since childhood; during long nights during which he missed something without knowing what it was, and he'd crawl out of bed, go to Annerose's room, but it wasn't her I lacked, and it wasn't our dead mother or our equally dead father. This melancholy had only disappeared once Kircheis was in his life, hadn't it? And then it had returned, heightened, more profound, as if Kircheis' last breath had ripped through the veil that his presence had put upon him for protection leaving Reinhard cold and naked, standing in front of the abyss. Perhaps, he thought vaguely, perhaps it never really disappeared, Kircheis was just noisy and worrisome enough to fill the voids in his mind as his presence did with rooms whenever they had been separated from each other for periods of time and he appeared, his worried smile and innocent eyes eliminating all the emptiness in just a small moment. Perhaps, yes, he thought, once more repeating to himself that it was just that, it was just in Kircheis' character to do that.

"Lord Reinhard," a voice came to call his attention, "you fell asleep."

Turning to face the owner of the voice, Emil, he was shocked to find someone else entirely, someone he cared more for, someone that shouldn't have been there at all.

"Kircheis!" he let out, an endearing, yet slightly frightened cry.

The red-haired boy smiled, and handed his best friend a cup of the coffee, probably brought over from downstairs, where the two old women helped him make it. "You were too tired, I think that's why you fell aslee-"

Kircheis stopped talking when Reinhard's fingers stroked curls of his hair, the blonde man's eyes open wide in shock, a mix of disbelief, pain, and surprise shining in them.

"It's really you," he said, not actually adressing Kircheis, just stating it out loud for it to be true, to feel true. "I've missed you," this time his voice was barely a whisper, a prayer to himself, "I've missed you so much," he didn't say but wished with every fiber of his being to; he didn't say because it would be useless, his dreams knew that he missed Kircheis; Kircheis's dream-self knew it too, there was no need for it to be said, it was childish, and needy, and ultimately futile: he missed Kircheis so deeply, so painfully, saying it out loud undermined the actual feeling, the word pretending to pass for reality, a word that children used for their pets and men used for their earthly posessions. No, "I've missed you" wasn't enough, nothing was.

The taller man looked at his friend for several moments, Reinhard recognizing confusion and worry in his blue eyes, before a knowing smile came to lighten his features. "Were you having a bad dream?"

Reinhard let go of Kircheis's hair and took the cup of coffee the young man was still offering him. He inhaled the smell of it; no memories coming forth this time.

"Yes, I think I was... I—Kircheis, I-"

"You're always dreaming, Lord Reinhard. There's no need to pay attention to the sad ones," his friend comforted him with a smile as he sat himself down on the sofa in front of the one where Reinhard was lying. The blonde young man looked around himself to find he recognized the house they both shared, the room they rented together, the one place in the entire universe he had ever called home. Everything in it was as it had been before he fell asleep, and he remembered falling asleep: it had happened seven years ago. He was reading strategy plans drafted by Staden, resting on the sofa; he had put his feet up to be more comfortable, and held the bulk of papers on his left hand. Suddenly, he'd felt tired and let his gaze wander off, to the horizon visible from the window. An overcast sky over small tile roofs had manifested itself to him. He remembered thinking it could have seemed big for someone else, but he had plans to grasp inmensity; that scenery was but a speck in all he was to accomplish. After these thoughts made his mind wander sufficiently, he'd laid his head down on the couch's arm, and looked to where Kircheis was, his back at him, sitting on the table, clicking away on his computer. He'd allowed himself a smile, and had then dozed off into sleep. That was all in his memory, from years ago and yet—he realised the papers were on his lap, the same ones, the sky was overcast, and Kircheis' computer was still on the table. How? he thought to himself, do I remember this...

He looked up at Kircheis again, focused on some papers held tightly in his hands, those hands Reinhard missed when they gripped his firmly, saying hello, or goodbye, or good luck; those hands that should've held the universe with him, place the crown upon his head so that he did not have to do so by himself, occupying the throne in solitude, all by himself in the emptiness of space. A sudden thought, important as nothing had ever seemed before, formed in his mind with the littlest hint of sadness; it was promptly buried, as Reinhard faintly remembered having watched this scene before. Kircheis sitting in front of him, papers on his lap, scratching his cheek: it existed in a dream, a memory, during those restless hours in which, alone, he took to remembering the quiet days of their youth; Kircheis always sitting some small distance away from him and no matter how hard he tried, Reinhard could not reach out to grab the red curls he so longed to feel, a nightmare made memory, or worse, a memory made nightmare that left him on edge all through the day after he woke, sometimes abruptly, sweaty and anxious. Taking another sip of the cup, he refrained from experimenting, after all, he'd already tangled his fingers in the red curls when receiving the coffee; there was no need for concern.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are these the new cups you bought?" he asked his friend.

Kircheis looked up at him and smiled, "Yes. How did you know?" The cups had been bought as replacement for a few that were broken a couple of days ago—that incident was too in Reinhard's memory—but, Reinhard knew, Kircheis would think it strange of his friend to ask about them, for the blonde man wasn't one to notice these things. Reinhard chuckled to himself, he did notice, every little detail, but never saw the need to mention them, maybe out of selfishness or pure, childishly wicked stubborness, yet he noticed every little thing Kircheis did for the both of them.

"They have seashell designs," the future Kaiser expressed, staring at the cup in his hand, the base of which was designed to appear like a conch.

Kircheis smiled again, probably unsure as to how to reply to Reinhard's statement, which had been full of melancholy and pain. Reinhard knew Kircheis would worry about that, probably choose against mentioning any of it, but that knowledge alone, the knowledge that his friend picked up on the little, seemingly unimportant details no one else would ever pick up on, brought him sadness and joy. This he had missed as well.

"Kircheis..."

"Yes, Lord Reinhard?"

"What if life is only a memory?"

"I don't follow."

"What if we're both old men in our dying bed, remembering our lives... and you're now only that... my memory, and I'm yours?"

Kircheis's eyes widened.

"It would be the same thing, wouldn't it?" Kircheis laughed.

Reinhard did the same, letting himself be relaxed, he finished his coffee and stared at the cup.

"Why did you choose this one?" he asked absent mindedly. He was truly curious as to why Kircheis had chosen that particular seashell design for their tableware. He remembered being curious—did he? Was this a memory? He knew for certain that, as far as he was aware, he had never asked that question. If he had dared ask now, then perhaps it was true that everything else, all the events he could remember that followed this day, all of them, had been just a dream.

"In Ancient times," Kircheis started, "people travelled great distances to go to sacred places, places where their saints had lived. The store owner told me this."

"What does that have to do with the cups, Kircheis?" Reinhard asked, mockery and glee in his tone. Kircheis was a child. And so was he, he realised, so am I.

"After going there, they took back a seashell, a conch, to remember that they had finalized their journey, probably the most important one of their lives, safely."

Losing his smile once more, Reinhard stared at his friend with eyes glazed in sadness and loss, a loss too big, too real to be expressed, but a loss that didn't exist anymore, that was slowly mutating into despair without reason.

"That's a nice story, Kircheis," he said, so sadly it could've broken the red-haired boy's heart. Maybe that too was what he was aiming for, wasn't it, he asked himself. Maybe he wanted Kircheis's heart to break, the red-haired boy had certainly broken his when he decided to die before Reinhard, why shouldn't Reinhard, who had been left behind, burdened with the task that they had taken upon themselves—it was for us both, half of it should've been yours, you had no right to leave, I didn't allow you to die—why shouldn't he break Kircheis's heart with a little sadness in his tone.

Focusing once more on the papers in his hand—research done to help his Lord Reinhard, that much was obvious—, Kircheis broke their eye contact, leaving Reinhard to his own thoughts. Maybe he was trying to push away the thoughts that nagged at him, thoughts about the Empire; about the galaxy, about the cause of his best friend, his Lord Reinhard's distress.

Reinhard looked back at the cup he held in both hands. It had been a dream, and he had woken from it. Hadn't Kircheis said that once himself? Yes, in a night that was yet to come, it was still very clearly present in Reinhard's mind for it wasn't long before—before he was lost forever to him. Kircheis had gone to him, "Am I just wandering in a long gallery of dreams? One day the dreams will end, and I'll say to Lady Annerose 'I had a dream. Lord Reinhard and I became soldiers, important men, commanding warships and travelling to the end of the universe,'" he'd said and Reinhard had laughed, it sounded beautiful, but it was childish, and naive, and so typical of Kircheis, yet, now, by some incredibly cruel twist of fate, it appeared to have come true.

"Kircheis, come here, sit with me." He tried to sound calm, just a simple order to his friend, a request even, but desperation shone through, need and longing in his words were almost, embarrassingly palpable.

Kircheis moved himself over to sit next to his friend as he had been asked; he looked nervous, or worried. He was always worrying, wasn't he? Because Annerose had asked him to, maybe, or because Reinhard did give too much cause for worry. Hadn't Westerland been—no, he pushed that thought away, that one and everything that came after that, every little plot, every little scheme that had caused the deaths of many, deaths that could've been avoided, so many lost lives he could've salvaged, all because you left me when you shouldn't have left, he said without saying a thing. Positioning a hand on top of Kircheis's shoulder, and caressing his red curls with the other, Reinhard stared intently into his friend's eyes. The thought he had tried to ignore by listening to Kircheis talk about the cups came back all too strongly, burying Westerland, and Farehnheit's and Reuenthal's and Yang Wenli's deaths. He felt Kircheis's hair, it was there in his hand, soft and vibrantly red, he could smell the coffee, and Kircheis was staring at him in bewilderment and concern, but Reinhard knew this was not real. It was a memory. He had fathered a son, married a good woman who wouldn't dare call him by name, conquered the universe, crowned himself Kaiser, and also, above all else, he had lost Kircheis. But those weren't the thoughts that crossed his mind and kept dragging him deeper into sadness, ordering him not to let go of that jade-red hair; no, that other thought was far more important, it wasn't a memory, or a dream, it was an epiphany: he didn't really care if having become Kaiser and conquering the galaxy had been just a dream, delusion even, he didn't care at all because his finger was twirled in Kircheis's curls and that mattered much more, now that those false memories had shown him how immense the void around himself was to be if he ever lost Kircheis.

"Lord Reinhard?" Kircheis's voice came to break his thoughts, his silence, and Reinhard retreated his hands from the other boy. Sometimes, he thought, I found it so difficult to tell us apart, sometimes you would put a hand on my shoulder, and I'd put a hand on your hand and I wouldn't be able to say which one was which, who was holding whose hand, or if I was just holding my own.

"I'm sorry, Kircheis," he uttered. "I understand now."

It was possible for Kircheis to be gone, he had dreamt it all too clearly, all too vividly, he had lived it, and the epiphany was much more than just realizing he didn't care about not being Kaiser, it wasn't just that, it was—he didn't feel this way before. No, not that. He didn't know he felt this way. He thought of Kircheis as his other half, a part of himself, a shadow that was always to be by his side, he never really saw Kircheis: didn't see that his dear sister loved him; didn't see that perhaps Kircheis loved his dear sister; but, most importantly, didn't see that the need for contact, that touch he always interpreted as being an anchor which grounded him when he drifted off too far, wasn't just that. It had taken him years of mourning the absence, years of pretending he was angry at his friend for leaving, to realize what it all meant. Why had he become a father? Wasn't it because he felt Kircheis's loss all too strongly again? The judgement his friend had posed on him as he denounced his ways, and then declared himself just a loyal subject. You were supposed to say "I'm the same as yourself and you should listen to my advice", but you recoiled and hurt me where I was hurting you, and then, as you kept on hurting me all through the years in which you dared be absent, I had to drown out your voice, and your face, and everything about you, in her. It's your fault I used her, and your fault I can't ask her to call me by name, listen to her advice, or pretend I don't realise how lonely she feels because, and for this too you are to blame, I can't love her.


	3. Chapter 3

He chuckled softly, feeling his eyebrows relax with the sincerity of his joy. "I forgive you," he said and Kircheis looked at him in confusion but laughed too. "I forgive you, Kircheis, and I know, for once, that you forgive me." The other man's soft, melodious laughter came to a stop.

"Lord Reinhard," he said with a smile that wished to show he understood. After all, wasn't every one of his smiles like that? Reinhard thought. "Lord Reinhard, what are you saying?" Kircheis continued, so much concern and affection in his voice, so much innocence.

"You forgive me," Reinhard told him, "I know because you always feel as I do, and you always will."

Pausing for a moment, as if to fully take in what had been said, Kircheis finally nodded and agreed which made Reinhard's smile fill itself with sadness: he knew Kircheis was agreeing because his character was such, and even if Reinhard had once truly and blindly believed that Kircheis was the same as himself, it hadn't been true, and the other boy had probably never believed it more than in passing. But finally recognizing this, at last admitting this to himself, brought a wave of relief that felt more like a complete victory than anything else: Kircheis did everything he did because he was Kircheis and loved Reinhard, not because he was Reinhard or a shadow of Reinhard's light; he willingly allowed Reinhard to believe they were the same to make Reinhard's load lighter and more bearable, to aid the ambitious man focus on the pursuit of his dreams and goals. Kircheis was no longer "the same as himself", no longer Reinhard's possession, he could be let go because Reinhard had finally found the real Kircheis. He hadn't lied about the forgiveness, though: Reinhard forgave Kircheis and he knew that Kircheis forgave him, and forgave him in advance, for Westerland, for every drop of blood that was unnecessarily shed, for everything, because Kircheis had always been particularly kind to those who didn't deserve it, and no one deserved that kindness less than Reinhard—it's all too clear now, all those years thinking we were equal, oh how wrong I was. Even if the future Kaiser had once hated and resented this particular trait about his friend, this willingness to forgive incompetence and grant kindness to those who didn't notice his actions, he now knew it had been precisely this which allowed, and quite possibly urged, Kircheis to stay by Reinhard's side. "I can finally forgive myself."

He opened his eyes once more, his dear sister was standing next to his bed. Relieved he looked at her; how strange this felt, this new sentiment, being at peace. He thought it strange being able to look at himself, to know he should be upset about waking up and losing Kircheis once more and not feeling upset, or annoyed, or even troubled, just at peace. This was what being whole felt like. He gazed up at Annerose and slightly smiled with his chapped, dry lips. His sister was beautiful, standing like an angel by his bedside, proud and serene.

"I had a dream, sister," he said. She didn't understand, she replied, but she spoke of another kind of dream. He didn't correct her: the type of dream she was speaking of was the one that had put him there, a worn out ambitious Kaiser that had changed his time by will; the dream he spoke of was new, and even if it had only allowed him to know what relief felt like, for a moment, it felt all the more valuable.

"Thank you for everything," he muttered again. This, too, was a new feeling: gratefulness. Of her, of Kircheis, of his Kaiserin, of Mittermeyer, of himself. He was seeing their hands as they'd built his dreams with him and he wanted to thank them, to hold them, to ask for their forgiveness and allow them to forgive him. He wished to tell Annerose he was sorry, for many things, but he didn't feel sorry, he felt forgiven and at ease, and to show this, because he knew she would understand, his hand followed the movement it was most familiar with, grabbed a hold of the pendant, his strength through all those years in which he couldn't forgive or be forgiven, love or be loved, and then stretched itself to offer it, to offer the pendant to the blonde woman standing next to the bed.

"Here, I no longer have any need of it, I will give it to you. And I'll return Kircheis to you, I'm sorry that I borrowed him from you for such a long time."


End file.
